Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
11/11/2021; Paride Bollettin; paride_bollettin@msn.com
Brief overview of two biological
anthropology “traditions”:
Italy and Brazil
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Topics:
1) Italian biological anthropology
1.1) emergence and consolidation
1.2) some past and present discussions
2) Brazilian biological anthropology
2.1) emergence and consolidation
2.2) some past and resent discussions
3) some possible comparisons
Source of background picture:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_di_antropologia_ed_etnologia
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Preliminary remarks:
- why Italian and Brazilian? “Periphery” of hegemonic
disciplinary canons
- “Some”: descriptions are always “partial”, so key figures,
topics, and connections discussed are some among other
possibilities
you are invited to search for complementary alternatives
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Once upon a time in Italy...
- Introduction of evolutionary debates with
controversies on the humans origins in the middle
of XIX Century
- Controversies between creationism and
evolution (i.e. de Filippi-zoologist versus
Zimmerman-senator)
- Officially instituted in 1869 with the chair:
“Anthropology and Ethnography”
First Italian edition 1864 (Source:
https://www.ebay.it/itm/113599239480)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Giuseppe Sergi (Spource:
https://www.liberliber.it/online/au
tori/autori-s/giuseppe-sergi/)
Giustiniano Nicolucci (Source:
https://frosinone.italiani.it/giustinian
o-nicolucci-ricordando-
lantropologo-ciociaro/)
Key figures in the institutionalization
of Italian Anthropology:
 Paolo Mantegazza (1869-Firenze)
 Giuseppe Sergi (1880-Bologna; 1884-
Roma)
 Giustiniano Nicolucci (1889-Napoli)
 Enrico Tedeschi (1898-Padova)
 Fabio Frassetto (1908-Bologna)
 Enrico Tedeschi (Source:
https://mostre.cab.unipd.it/archeol
ogiafuoriluogo/it/46/enrico-
tedeschi-1860-1931)
Fabio Frassetto (Source:
https://www.storiaememoriadibologna.i
t/frassetto-fabio-515301-persona)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Paolo Mantegazza (1831-1910)
- Took part in the Italian Risorgimento (1848: Milano)
- Politician (low and high chamber)
- Doctor and surgeon, funder of the first experimental
pathology laboratory at Pavia
- First professor of “Anthropology and Ethnology” at Firenze
from 1869
- funder of the National Museum of Anthropology and
Ethnology in 1869
- funder of the journal Archive for Anthropology and
Ethnology in 1871
- [published one of the first Italian science fiction book: 3000] Paolo Mantegazza (Source:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paol
o_Mantegazza)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Voyages of Paolo Mantegazza
- South America (1854-1858)
- Lapland (1879)
- India (1881-1882)
*travel books + scientific
descriptions
*use of images also with actors
and of Italian people
India (Source:
http://www.zoomedia.it/Firenze/mu
sei/storia_naturale/mantegazza/ind
ex.html)
Lapland (Source:
http://www.zoomedia.it/Firenze/musei/stor
ia_naturale/mantegazza/index.html)
Grades of emotions (Source:
http://www.zoomedia.it/Firenze/
musei/storia_naturale/mantegaz
za/index.html)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Anthropology:
“assign the natural place to man in the hierarchy of living
creatures, study their changes in climate, race, sex, food and
disease, study the varieties, races and different types of man,
classify them, investigate human crosses and hybridisms;
analyse man, define and measure his strengths, physical and
moral needs in the different races and of every race to make
natural history; groped the design of the boundaries of human
perfectibility: this is what this science proposes.”
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Key themes:
- Darwinism and evolution
- Human family
- Progress
- Eugenetics and hygiene
Un giorno a Madera (Source:
https://www.amazon.it/giorno-
Madera-Paolo-Mantegazza/dp/B00
HFWZ628)
Fisiologia del
piacere (Source:
https://www.rebaldoria
.com/12882-fisiologia-
del-piacere-paolo-
mantegazza.html)
Journal L’antropologia (Source:
https://www.gozzini.it/product/archivio-
per-lantropologia-e-la-etnologia)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
(Marco Ezechia) Cesare Lombroso
(1835-1909)
- Took part in the Risorgimento as a military doctor
- Doctor with studies at Pavia, Padova and Vienna
(pathology and physiology)
- Professor of mental diseases at Pavia and later of
legal medicine in Turin
- Director of the Mental Hospital in Pesaro
- Doctor at the prison of Turin
- Funder of the Criminal Museum in 1876
- Funder of the journal Archive of Psychiatry in 1880
- [spiritist]
Cesare Lombroso (Source:
https://profilicriminali.it/2018/05/28/cesare-lombroso/)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Theory of innate and
biologically conditioned
criminal tendency
Giuseppe Villella: congenital fusion
of the corresponding part of the occiput
with the atlas
“Suddenly, one morning of a sad December day, I find in the skull of a brigand a whole
long series of atavistic anomalies […] At the sight of these strange anomalies, as appears
a wide plain under the sea. flaming horizon, the problem of the nature and origin of the
criminal appeared to me to be solved: the characters of primitive men and lower animals
were to be reproduced in our times.”
Giuseppe Villella’s skull (Source:
http://www.strettoweb.com/2015/07/consiglio-
regionale-cranio-brigante-giuseppe-villella-
restituito-calabria/302883/)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Lombroso’s key themes
- Women delinquent-born
- Epilepsy
- Criminal evolution
- Co-presence of biological and social
factors in criminal tendencies
Political criminals (Source:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/C
esare_Lombroso)
Neapolitan criminals (Source:
https://www.arte.it/foto/i-1000-volti-di-lombroso-
1275/12)
Lombroso Museum (Source:
https://www.lacnews24.it/opinioni/da-meridionali-
cannibali-alle-altre-bugie-il-museo-lombroso-e-
razzista-vi-spiego-perche_137912/)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
“The race manifesto”
- During the fascism focus on Italian
character (biological and social)
- 14th
July 1938, anonymous (by
Guido Landra)
- “human races exist” (biological
versus social)
- historical negationism: Italian race
as Arian race
- influences in both biological and
social anthropology debates
The race manifesto (Source:
https://www.ansa.it/canale_lifestyle/notizie/societa_diritti/2018/07/14/il-
manifesto-della-razza-ecco-il-testo-per-non-dimenticare-80-anni-
dopo_94f44111-b55a-4545-93cd-05c829211a4e.html)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Post WWII
- emphasis in paleoanthropology,
primatology and genetics
- presence of eclectic disciplinary
backgrounds
- fragmentation in diverse associations
- example: Sergio Sergi at Saccopastore
e Monte Circeo and new research tools
Saccopastore 1 skull (Source:
https://www.rerumromanarum.c
om/2018/09/uomo-di-
saccopastore.html)
Book on Monte Circeo Neanderthal (Source:
https://www.abebooks.com/cranio-
Neandertaliano-Monte-Circeo-cura-prefazione/
30794226125/bd)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Luigi Luca Cavalli
Sforza
- 1922- 2018
- Studies in medicine
- Studies on bacteria and interest
in genetic
i.e.: sexuality among bacteria
and resistance to antibiotics
- Case study of Riana: analysis of
parochial archives and inhabitants’
genetic samples
Connected bacterias (Source:
https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/br.3
2.1.55-83.1968)
Riana, Parma (Source:
http://www.libreriapalatinaeditrice.it/libri-
fotografici-collezioni-di-cartoline-e-
fotografie-depoca.html)
L.L. Cavalli Sforza (Source:
https://royalsocietypublishing.or
g/doi/10.1098/rsbm.2020.0015)
interest in human
genetic evolution
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Key concepts
- evolutionary tree of human
populations (migrations,
separations and mixtures)
- gene-culture transmission
(dual inheritance theory)
- linguistic “superfamilies”
Controversy on Human
Genome Diversity Project
Phylogenetic Three
(Source:
https://www.genetics.org/con
tent/183/1/5.figures-only)
Cultural Transmission and
Evolution (Source:
https://www.amazon.it/Cultur
al-Transmission-Evolution-
MPB-16-Quantitative-
ebook/dp/B0851TD4BZ)
Genes People and
Language (Suirce:
https://www.bookshop.cz/
university-of-california-
press/genes-peoples-
and-languages-1/?
gclid=Cj0KCQjww4OMBh
CUARIsAILndv7B5NndO
Bha7pmIHxOE64NFMfs
HR2KN3mkAubtMdqglEV
agVNt3io0aAm9nEALw_
wcB
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Elisabetta Visalberghi
- studies on insects’ mimetic
behaviour
- studies on traveling
pigeons
- sociality of primates at
Rome Zoo
- recognized as the more
influential Italian
primatologist
- active science promulgator
Elisabetta Visalberghi (Source: https://www.raiplay.it/video/2019/01/memex-pt7-
visalberghi-2018-raiplay-e145f6b1-f902-421f-b7cd-11c2cc8cbf80.html)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Studies on Cebus spp.
- cognition in Rome Zoo:
manipulative abilities and strategic
choices
- tool uses in Brazil: first record of
tool use among Neotropic primates
“in nature”
- nature conservation and humanenvironment
relations
Rome Zoo (Source: https://www.cnr.it/en/press-
release/8511/dai-primati-lezioni-di-economia)
Piaui, Brazil (Source:
https://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/specializzati/scienza/2012/
06/29/Anche-piccole-scimmie-sanno-usare-sassi-come-
strumenti_7117489.html)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Ethocebus Project
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5dUrHyZPJs&t=3s
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Once upon a time in
Brazil…
- arriving of the Portuguese royal
court in Brazil and foundation of
superior education
- 1888: Princess Isabel and Lei Aurea
- Images of Brazil as a “mixed”
population
- Influence of polygenetic origins
theory (Paul Broca and Ernst
Haeckel)
- Nationalism
Examples of miscigenation (Source:
https://nacaomestica.org/blog4/?p=2252)
Race and classes (Source:
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escravidão_no_Brasil)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Ladislau Netto and The
Botocudo Exhibition
- 1838-1884
- Director of the National Museum of Rio de
Janeiro
- Journal Arquivos do Museu Nacional (1876):
anthropometric studies of Amerindians
- 1882: First Brazilian Anthropological
Exhibition
- Homo americanus (from Silvio Romero)
- Tupi versus Tapuia
- Anthropometric similarities with the fossils of
Lagoa Santa
- Sexual selection and whitening of Brazil
(with João Batista de Lacerda)
Ladislau Netto
(Source:
https://en.wikipedia.or
g/wiki/Ladislau_de_So
uza_Mello_Netto)
Botocudos in “their” village (Source:
https://historiaemrede.medium.com/a-
exposição-antropológica-de-1882-
evolucionismo-e-europeização-no-brasil-
imperial-83f9a1d94555)
Botocudos women (Source:
https://www.scielo.br/j/ha/a/Kyt7B78FryqpJ4
pnDyJ8pqt/abstract/?lang=en)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Descriptions of Botocudos
“creatures that only had the form and the physical
nature of man; individuals whose almost absolute
deprivation of a modulate language, capable of
expressing their thought, whose crude gestures
and ape-like customs, revealed much of the
character of those animals with whom they live in
complete promiscuity.”
“all the lofty moral and physical characteristics of
the American people — very probably, a collateral
branch of the oldest sources of humanity — have
turned off, one by one.” Botocudos (Source:
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/agpx4fbv)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Raimundo Nina Rodrigues
- 1868- 1906: son of a slave owner
- “Sympathy” for black people: collection of
“ethnographic” evidences of Afro-Brazilian people
- Medical studies on leprosity and malnutrition
- Professor at the Bahia Faculty of Medicine
- Racial determinism for incidence of diseases
- Influence of Lombroso, to which dedicate his
book “Miscigenation, degeneration and crime”
- Introduction of “the negro problem”: “the negro is
not only an economic machine: he is, despite his
ignorance, a scientific object.” Nina Rodgrigues statue at UFBA (Source:
https://cparq.ufba.br/acervo/drraimundo-
nina-rodrigues)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Nina Rogrigues and legal
medicine in Brazil
- Nina Rodrigues funder of the
discipline
- Scientific racism: “documented,
meticulous and rigorous observation”
- Higher criminal propensity of negros
- Biological determinism
- Proposal of separate penal codes for
withes and blacks: “equality if false, it
only exists among jurists, because
without it law would not exist.”
Exhibition of cangaçeiros (Source:
https://aventurasnahistoria.uol.com.br/noticias/reportage
m/de-exibicao-em-praca-publica-a-decomposicao-o-
destinomacabro-da-cabeca-de-lampiao-e-seu-
bando.phtml)
Negro types
(Source:
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
“The Negro problem”
“For science, the inferiority of the black race is
nothing more than a phenomenon of a perfectly
natural order, a product of the uneven pace of the
phylogenetic development of humanity in its various
divisions or sections.”
“Blacks, mainly, are inferior to whites, starting from
the encephalic mass, which weighs less, and from
the masticatory system, which has animal
characteristics, to the faculties of abstraction, which
in it is so poor and weak. Whatever the social
conditions in which blacks are placed, they are
condemned by their own morphology and physiology
to never be able to equal whites.”
Enslaved black women with white kids (Source:
http://juarezribeiroa.blogspot.com/2018/09/28-de-setembro-dia-da-
gratidao-mae-preta.html)
Black Women (Source:
https://www.historiailustrada.com.br/2014/04/raras-
fotografias-escravos-brasileiros.html)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Turning point at the middle
of 900
“In terms of racial mixing, no colonizing people in
modern times has surpassed, or even equaled, the
Portuguese. From the first contact on, the
colonizers happily coupled with dark-skinned
women and multiplied through mestizo children”
(Gilberto Freire, 1930)
- from genetics of Drosophila spp. to humans:
- highly “mixed” population
- high birth and death rates
- long debates about “races”
Italian immigrants (Source: https://www.oriundi.net/ha-146-
anos-nascia-a-imigracao-italiana-no-brasil)
Rockefeller Foundation since the Twenties with
geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky at USP
Dobzhansky at USP (Source:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136
9848614000508)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Genetics and human variability
- 1940: Fitz Ottensooser at Laboratorio
Paulista de Biologia and mathematical
formula of racial mixing
- 1958: First Brazilian Human Genetics
Conference
- 1960: Pedro Saldanha (USP) mixing flows
and three “basic” genetic contributions
(indigenous, whites and blacks)
- in the same period the morphological
studies remained mainly descriptive: Marilia
Carvalho at (UFRJ) on prehistoric
skeletons
Restitution of Yanomami blood samples
(Source: https://www.survival.it/notizie/10741)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Some directions in Brazilian
biological anthropology
- Palaeoanthropology: arrival and dispersion of
American populations (i.e.: Eduardo Neves and
revision of Lagoa Santa)
- Biomedical anthropology: incidence of
diseases in diverse populations (i.e. genetic and
environmental influences on epidemics)
- Forensic anthropology: change from initial
studies (i.e.: 2009 group for missing people
during dictatorship)
- Primatology: studies of Brazilian primates
(great recent expansion and new species)
Lagpa Santa (Source:
https://www.ufmg.br/espacodoconhecimento/o-homem-de-
lagoa-santa-2/)
Ossuary in SP (Source:
https://www.agif.com.br/pautas/detalhe/20565)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Similarities:
- Nationalist origins (recent funded
states)
- Attention to internal demographic
diversity
- Close relation between biological and
social anthropology at the origin
- Positivist origins
- Developments affected by specific
individuals, national specificities and
international debates
- Contemporary wide disciplinary
panoramas
Amerindian head in Munich Museum (Source:
https://g1.globo.com/ciencia-e-saude/noticia/cranios-de-
indigenas-brasileiros-controverso-legado-colonial-
alemao.ghtml)
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Differences:
- ? Please appoint...
- ? Please appoint…
- ? Please appoint…
- ... Human diffusion (Source: Cavalli Sforfa and Feldman at Genet. 2003 Mar;33 Suppl:266-75. doi:
10.1038/ng1113.
Course: Introduction to Anthropology I
Toward a global discussion
beyond the “periphery”
- relevance of local specificities in
canonical disciplinary “history”
- contributions of “not-hegemonic”
debates
- multiplication of epistemologies
- attention to political dimensions of
anthropology Human diversity (Source:
http://www.minutobiomedicina.com.br/postagens/2015/05/21/pesqu
isadores-descobrem-marcas-de-dna-polinesio-em-indios-
botocudos/)
What about Czech Republic?